The role of contemporary computers continues to evolve as a tool used for communications and media applications. Personal computers offer many new and exciting media applications for personal entertainment such as live television, personal video recording, playing or recording digital music, displaying or creating digital photographs, playing movies recorded on a DVD, and so forth.
With the introduction of Voice-over-IP (VoIP) and other IP telephony applications, computers may also be used for handling phone calls and voice mail in addition to handling media applications and customary communication applications such as email, instant messaging, and fax communications. A personal computer with integrated telephony can enhance voice and video communication in ways that empower the user while increasing user productivity and enjoyment. For example, a personal computer may be designed that is capable of accepting incoming calls of various kinds such as analog Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN), private branch exchange (PBX), cellular telephony or VoIP. There is the potential for such a personal computer to be connected to telephone equipment for PSTN, cellular telephony or PBX, and provide an enhanced user interface such as for handling voice mail.
Media controls may be provided by each application through its software user interface for interacting with content supported by that application. Such media controls are not available to other applications for users to control different multimedia content. What is needed is a method and system for a user to interact with these various communications and media applications. Although some existing interfaces could be used for interacting with and controlling these various applications, what is needed is a user interface that may work across these various modalities.